


Snow Melt

by baranduin



Series: No Night Is Too Long [13]
Category: No Night is Too Long (2002)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ivo and Tim built the snowman, what if they were watched?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Melt

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fanfic100 community challenge #067--Snow.

Dr. Martin Zeindler is Tim's advisor. He is also Ivo's landlord. He has brought the two of them together through what he thinks is chance, though, if he were a superstitious or spiritual man, he might think there is something more at work here than mere hazard.

A snowfall draped P the night before, the night Tim moved in with Ivo, and now Martin stands by the window and looks down at the garden, shivering in spite of the fact that he has the radiators set as high as they will go and has covered himself in layers of sweaters and fussy shawls appropriate to his state. He smiles as he watches Ivo build his snowman; his smile grows broader though a little wistful (if that is possible for such a dried-up old gentleman who is not really so old in years) when Tim joins Ivo and they complete their rotund frozen man. He wonders if they might name the snowman after him, and that makes his smile droop a little as he remembers something from his past in a quick, incomplete flash that strikes a chord of curious sympathy for these two.

They might be carefree children as they caper about in the clean white drifts; they are behaving very differently than is usual for them. Ivo—the youngish professor of old bones, testy and sarcastic enough to be well on his way down the path of becoming a curmudgeon. It is no wonder that Martin has a crusty affection for him; in some ways he looks on Ivo as his protégé, or would if only Ivo would keep the damned windows and doors closed against dangerous draughts. And then there is Tim. What about Mr. Cornish? Martin does not think he has ever seen or heard Tim laugh like that, with happy abandon. Martin knows Tim as the outrageously beautiful young man who nevertheless conducts himself in a manner that renders him nearly colourless, at least in Martin's presence (though there must be something in him beyond beauty for him to have caused such a ruckus at his former residence). It shows in his writing, a lack of affect, a secretive reserve, a near absolute self-effacement. So when his laughter rings out in the cold, crisp air, it is almost as shocking to Martin as the young man's beauty, and Martin feels its sound wrap around him like another blanket, warm and alive. If Tim were ever to tap into that sense of life and channel it into his writing, well, in that case Martin might have kinder words and more enthusiastic encouragement to dish out. He might even be willing to overlook the occasional colloquial contraction.

It occurs to Martin that this odd friendship (if friendship is the correct word and Martin is beginning to doubt that it is) which has grown up between Ivo and Tim could well be the making of Tim. Perhaps a bit of passion is what is needed though Martin does not require any external actions on their part to know what is going on. Nevertheless, he does spy one, just one small demonstration, as he looks out the window. It is a kiss, quite brief, but friends (at least in the experience that Martin possesses through a lifetime of close observation of human beings) do not generally kiss on the mouth in public and certainly not passionately. At least Englishmen do not generally engage in such behavior, and Martin suspects that this belief can be generalized to a wide extent (reports of Canal Street notwithstanding, or was it Cuba Street).

Though it is Ivo who pulls his lover (for that is clearly what they are) close with two hands clasped behind Tim's head, it is Tim who initiates the kiss. Martin can see that, there is little wrong with his eyesight this morning. The way Tim sets the kiss in motion is very intriguing, and more than a little erotic. It makes Martin blush to realize this; he is quite innocent though he is much past the age of innocence, but a lifetime spent dreaming away in an ivory tower will do much for the preservation of certain innate qualities. Tim uses the back of one hand to stroke Ivo's cheek. He lays it just beneath Ivo's eye, at the prominent ridge of angular cheekbone, and then trails his fingers down the side of Ivo's face, achingly slowly. Then he pulls his hand back, quickly, as though he has done something it was ill-advised to do and expects to be chastised for it.

If the kiss is chastisement, then Tim seems to enjoy his punishment, for he leans closer, pressing his body against Ivo's. They do not remain that way for long, and when they break apart, they laugh again. Ivo says something to Tim. Martin cannot hear the words, but their effect is to make Tim go inside.

Martin steps away from the window just in time, for as Tim runs into the house, he looks up. Even from such a distance away, Martin catches a quick impression of vivid red-kissed mouth and cold-chapped cheeks. He really is an astonishingly beautiful young man.

Martin stands in the middle of his room, his heart beating rapidly, his breathing coming in quick exhalations that he might call panting if he were not too dignified to allow that word into his vocabulary, at least in regard to his own person. As a matter of fact, he is literally shaking and, unaccountably, has grown warm enough to let one plaid shawl slip from his shoulders and fall to the floor. After a few moments, he hears Tim cry out as he returns to Ivo, "Here, how about this one? Will it do?"

Though he longs to take up his observation post again, Martin dares not and does not approach the window until he knows that Tim and Ivo have gone back into the house. The door slams shut with enough force to make the floor beneath Martin's feet shudder, a little. When he comes close to the window again, he laughs at the snowman with its hat and scarf, but he cannot see it until he wipes off the window, which has somehow grown cloudy and fogged. Then again, Martin reminds himself, he had turned up the heat as high as it would go.

All in all, Martin is quite relieved that he does not have any student tutorials today, and especially not one with the suddenly surprising Mr. Cornish.


End file.
